Yevgeny Yevtushenko - A Memorial (repost)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The first book I bought upon returning home from Viet-Nam was the Penguin Modern European Poets paperback edition of Yevtushenko: Selected Poems. That 75-cent paperback from a bookstall in the airport in San Francisco is beside me on the desk as I write.

At this point the convention is to write that Yevtushenko changed my life forever, gave me an epiphany, and blah, blah, blah. He didn’t. But I really like him.

All Change at Zima Junction

For Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1932-2017

Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction
Changes lives; nineteen becomes twenty-one
With hardly a pause for twenty and then
Everyone asks you questions you can’t answer

And then they say you’ve changed, and ignore you
The small-town brief-case politician still
Enthroned as if she were a committee
And asks you what you are doing back here

And then you go away, on a different train:
Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction

“I went, and I am still going.”1


1Yevtuskenko: Selected Poems. Penguin,1962

Only You Mustn't Say "Corona" Now - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Only You Mustn’t Say “Corona” Now

Last night, the moon had a golden ring

-Longfellow, “The Wreck of the Hesperus”

Tonight the moon has a silver ring, a crown
A corona, and a corona of stars
Only you mustn’t say “corona” now
Not even if you want a glass of beer

When windy March began, the pestilence
As in the news, and trouble was anticipated
We all bought toilet paper and canned meat
And sanitizer in cute little pumps

Futility. The world itself has changed
But still the moon enthroned is crowned with stars

Will You Be in the Body-Bag Next to Me? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Will You Be in the Body-Bag Next to Me?

Will you be in the body-bag next to me?
Crowed into a refrigerated truck
Bumping along the crematorium road
Kept frozen until removed for cooking

This Side Up

The sides of the truck might advertise ice cream
Or maybe the back door will be labelled “FISH”
The living will take photographs for the news
And for the schoolbooks children will ignore

May Have Passed Through Machinery Used to Process Nuts

When you and I, beloved, have ceased to be
Will you be in the body-bag next to me?

Gluten Free

When I came home from Viet-Nam I thought I’d never again have to consider body-bags.

If Jesus Wrote a Letter to a Catholic 'Blog - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

If Jesus Wrote a Letter to a Catholic ‘Blog

If Jesus wrote a letter to a Catholic ‘blog
He would be told how very wrong He is
The huggers would scorn Him for His strictness
The rad-trads would damn Him as a heretic

If Jesus wrote a letter to a Catholic ‘blog
A jet-set priest would send Him pictures of meals
Both in first-class and in trattorias in Rome
And ask Him for a contribution for, oh, missions

If Jesus wrote a letter to a Catholic ‘blog
He would be blocked for violating community standards

Tomatoes and Children in Wire Cages - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Tomatoes and Children in Wire Cages

They look so lonely, set out in a row
Behind the wire cages they are assigned
Peering out to the world denied them now
Fragile and young, so vulnerable, so small

But with sunlight and love they will arise
Growing around those cages, and building up
Beauty and strength in tended fellowship
In laughter, love, and, learning firmly set

They look so lovely, for they grow themselves
To bless the world beyond their poor beginnings








No, I am not doing the "Bad Orange Man" thing here; the restraint of children - some of whom are not children at all - brought across borders by their parents or those purporting to be their parents has being going on for a long time. The current president has not done anything about it, and, except for protesting, neither have you, and neither have I.

Whiteoak Leaves - MePhone Photograph

We're All in This Together, Sure - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

We’re All in This Together, Sure

We’re all in this together we’re coming
Together together as one we’re all
In this together we’re coming together
Together as one we’re all in this together

They twoot from their home studios i luv u
Their swimming pools i luv u their marble sinks
Remember i luv u here’s a song I wrote for u
And just for you copyright i luv u

And those of us encaged in little bed-sits
Are comforted by those posturing (tw)its

A Disapproval of Rene Descartes - cheesy rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Disapproval of Rene Descartes

or

Putting the Cartesian Before Remorse

Rene Descartes, how foul thou art! Or wert -
For thou and thy mad maths art in the dirt!

Learning in Virus-Time - weekly column

Lawrence (Mack) Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Learning in Virus-Time

One of the conventions of the virus-time is for scribblers to publish lists of suggested books that might help cope with homebound isolation (and with the slowdown of the movie streaming service).

Some reading lists address understanding and dealing with the alarming nature of a time in which the comforts of brief periods of stability collapse because they have no foundations, and the essential uncertainty of the human condition is revealed. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning comes to mind, as does much of literature. Tolkien’s mythologies contrast the transient with the transcendent, as do both the fiction and the scholarly writings of C. S. Lewis. Especially relevant just now is his essay, “Learning in War-time” (http://bradleyggreen.com/attachments/Lewis.Learning%20in%20War-Time.pdf). In children’s literature, even Peter Rabbit must cope with the reality that his father ended up as rabbit pie.

Other lists feature escapism as therapy, and that’s necessary too; constant attention to the news is unhealthy. A good dose of Louis L’Amour, Agatha Christie, P. G. Wodehouse, James Bond, and Barbara Cartland provide a necessary therapy.

Not so very long ago in calendar time but very long ago in virus-time I asked a (brilliant) student who always came to my class with personal reading what books she had been exploring in the two or three months since term had begun. She thoughtfully wrote out the list for me:

I Am not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Erika Sanchez

All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque

Tell Me How it Ends: an Essay in Forty Questions, Valeria Luiselli

How to Become a Straight-A Student, Cal Newport

The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein

The Love Poems of RUMI

I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me, Hugh Prather

None of these books was assigned; like all thoughtful people my student always had a book to consider between classes, work, footer, dance, and her job: a novel with Mexican-American-adolescent themes, a novel a German teen soldier in the First World War, a study in immigration, a how-to about doing better in school, a childhood comfort-book as a vade mecum, a book of poetry, and, well, with an icky-sugary title such as I Touch the Earth Blah Blah Blah I investigated no further. Not all men are strong enough to withstand such a horror.

The point is that an exceptional young woman considered her world through dance and music and assigned thinky-stuff and sports and work, and also through the thoughts of others through lots of good books. And all without a national shutdown and threats of temporal harm to prompt her. We should be more like her.

Men…propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature.

-CSL, “Learning in War-Time,” 22 October 1939

-30-

The Dancer on the Garbage Truck - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Dancer on the Garbage Truck

He lightly leaped from the old garbage truck
Waved back at me, and sprinted to the bin
He Fred Astaired it as a pas de deux
And lifted it up with panther-like grace

The battered bin - it could have been: Ginger,
Leslie Caron, or maybe Cyd Charisse
He was a muscled young dancer who made
Even tipping the garbage a work of art

He lightly leaped to the old garbage truck
Waved me good-bye, and danced the day away

Logotherapy in the Virus-Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poetricdrivel.blogspot.com

Logotherapy in the Virus-Time

I search for God within my books
Just as I scan the sky for Him
And peer into the minnow-shallows
And listen for His voice by night





(“Logotherapy” is an allusion to Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning)

Obsequies for a Hummingbird - a virus-free poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Obsequies for a Hummingbird

Some disagree about the nature of death
Maintaining that it is in the nature of life
A logical end, and none should be mourned
But we were in Eden, and so we mourn

A hummingbird in death is unnatural
Its tiny wings should be as immortal as
They are invisible in darting flight
Shimmering forever in green and red

I will not bury it, no; I will lift
It gently into the bole of an oak

And from there, God…

Fleur D'espoir (Flower of Hope) - poem and picture in the virus-time

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Fleur D’espoir

The deep blue spiderwort – she does not know
An epidemic now has been declared
And all the world beyond her cobalt glow
Has found itself panicked and unprepared

The sunbright spiderwort – upon the lawn
Reposes in her leafy springtime berth
Delighting in the sweet birds’ carillon
Smiling at Heaven, but close to the earth

The joyful spiderwort – careless of fear
Gives us hope, as always, in her new year

Toy Graduation Ducks - poem in the virus-time

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Toy Graduation Ducks

In another era – two weeks ago –
I ordered a box of graduation ducks
To be given to the high school seniors
As is my custom, for a bit of fun

But now…

The ducks have not arrived; the schools are closed
The stores are open, but their shelves are bare
The students are dispersed, only god knows where
Maybe we won’t see all of them again

Is this a time to think about toy ducks?
Yes

Poetic First Lines Re-imagined for a Time of Self-Distancing - entertainment

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Poetic First Lines Re-imagined for a Time of Self-Distancing

1. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost

Whose woods these are, I think I know
His house is still in lockdown, though


2. “Sea-Fever,” John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky
But with all the travel restrictions, I can kiss that idea good-bye


3. “If,” Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs, and stealing T.P. from the loo


4. “Sailing to Byzantium,” W. B Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
Keep social distance, birds watch Netflix


5. “Night Mail,” W. H Auden

This is the Night Mail crossing the border
Bringing the cheque and the quarantine order


6. “Zima Junction,” Yevgeny Yevtushenko

As we get older we get honester,
And hand sanitizer when we can find it


7. “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” John Keats

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The bread is all gone from the shelves
And no birds sing.

8. “Fiesta Melons,” Sylvia Plath

In Benidorm there are melons,
Whole donkey-carts full

No good for wiping


9. “The World I Used to Know,” Rod McKuen

Someday some old familiar rain
Will come along and know my name
And tell me all the Spam is gone
And I’ll have to move along


10. “What is This Gypsy Passion for Separation?” Marina Tsvetaeva

What is this gypsy passion for separation, this
Readiness to rush off – when we’ve just met?

(I didn’t change a word of this one)

-30-

A Rainy Day and Locked-Down Anyway - poem in the virus-time

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Rainy Day and Locked-Down Anyway

No excuses, of course: we must get dressed
If death itself appears at the front door
We would not want to be caught in our ‘jammies
Or in surrender flaked upon the couch

We will wake up to a glad morning hymn
And for inspection wash and brush and dress
For even if nobody else sees us, God will
And we must be ready for the Office of Lauds

That God doesn’t care how we’re dressed for prayer
Is a thumping lie: Up! and dress with care

With a Dog and an Oxygen Tank - poem in the virus-time

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

With a Dog and an Oxygen Tank

An old man with a dog and oxygen tank
Steers his duct-taped golf cart to the café
For the morning liturgy at his corner seat
The vinyl cathedra where he presides in state

At midnight all the cafes must be closed
It’s for our own good, the wise governor says
But since Pontius Pilate, who trusts governors?
All churches are closed, and, worse, all cafes

Where and with whom can he worship today
That old man with his dog and oxygen tank

Pushkin and the Sheriff's Report - virus-free poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Pushkin and the Sheriff’s Report

In a languid Russian story or play
A beautiful young woman in a summer dress
Beside a willow-tree lake sits and dreams
Over a novel as a caller arrives

But in our time we read in the sheriff’s report
Of tatted old meth-gals knifing each other
In a junked-out trailer surrounded by trash
While a bony meth-boy watches the fight

Love ends

Sometimes with notes in rounded copperplate
Sometimes with knives down at the trailer park

Keep Calm and Carry Out Lunch in a Paper Sack - weekly column in the virus-time

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

(The Governor of Texas has ordered that most businesses and all table-service restaurants, including the roadside old-guy cafes, be shut down indefinitely as of midnight, Friday, the 20th of March 2020.)

Keep Calm and Carry Out Lunch in a Paper Sack

Several days ago a friend and I enjoyed our weekly lunch. In a restaurant. Surrounded by people. We shook hands both hail and farewell. Wild ‘n’ crazy, eh? We didn’t realize then that this would be our last shared lunch for – how long?

With the schools closed, who else will village idiots (yes, I said “village idiots,” for that is what they are) telephone to make bomb threats?

Did any government agency make plans for comforting the losers whose reason for living is calling in bomb threats? And why not? And do the twits who make bomb threats receive a thousand dollars each for losing their purpose in life for a month or so?

Grocery shopping has become like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get. Spam, which at other times rates only a sneer of disapproval, cannot now be found. A five-pound net bag of potatoes is another rarity, but the other day small bags of new potatoes were available, as well as single-wrapped potatoes for baking. Unlike the Night-of-Zombie-Terror-in-Abandoned-City pictures on the InterGossip the stores I’ve visited are stocked well enough, but you have to be flexible and creative.

If a serious food shortage develops, I propose that we eat the motivational speakers first.

A meme on Gyphy has Oprah Winfrey exclaiming happily, “And YOU get a roll of toilet paper and YOU get a roll of toilet paper and YOU get a roll of toilet paper…!”

A common analogy is that the current crisis is like the Second World War. I am too young to have been in that war, but I’m pretty sure that a spot of bother in finding a roll of toilet paper or a loaf of bread is nothing like the death marches, bombing raids, starving children, or prison camps.

A depressing fact is that everyone seems to be blaming everyone: why didn’t the president have stocks of testing kits in his garage, why did the mayor of Frontage Road, Texas shut down his town, why did the mayor of Trackside, Idaho not shut down his town, why didn’t your cousin the LVN know about the coronavirus ten years ago, why didn’t the governor tell me to stock up on toilet paper last month, why are the borders closed, why aren’t the borders closed, why are there people on the roads, why aren’t there people on the roads, why are the restaurants closed, why aren’t the restaurants closed, why aren’t there enough masks that don’t work anyway except that maybe they do work or maybe they don’t, why are churches closed, why aren’t churches closed, and on and on. Some of the comments on the InterGossip would embarrass Darwin, and Nonna and MawMaw would have something to say about such cruel words.

And, no, billionaires aren’t hoarding respirators.

This virus will end, probably just in time for the hurricanes, but we can get back to our proper jobs and the occasional visit to the coffee shop for the coffee we always say is too expensive but we will drink it anyway and enjoy being with friends again. In the meantime, let us Keep Calm and Carry Out the go-cups.

-30-

Dog Tags Somehow Remain - a virus-free poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Dog Tags Somehow Remain

I didn’t take off my dog tags for a long time
How long? I don’t remember now – but long
It was as if they had always been there:
Name, service number, blood type, religion. Me

All the Navy wanted to know about me
If I were killed up some river somewhere
Some creature having then eaten my eyes
And then more of me, the tags would remain

A beaded chain, dog tags, a crucifix
Hard to let go then, hard to let go now